chapter 3 key messages from international literature · chapter 3 key messages from international...

LITERATURE REVIEW

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CHAPTER 3KEY MESSAGES FROMINTERNATIONAL LITERATUREJO TUNNARD

1. Introduction

1.1 The review and definition of terms

The aim of the review is to explore what is known, from the UK and elsewhere, abouthow to provide positive contact experiences when children are living in family and friends care.

The term contact is used to mean face-to-face meetings, supplemented at times byphone, letter, text and email contact.

The term family and friends care is used to describe arrangements that are alsovariously called relative care, kin care, kinship care, network care and social networkcare. Although this may be a private arrangements with no involvement from anystatutory agency, the review has focused upon formal arrangements where children areliving with relatives or friends who, with the knowledge of local authority children’sservices, have taken on full-time responsibility for them because they cannot remain athome with their parents. The children account for approximately one in five children infoster care.1 They might be looked after by the local authority (under a voluntaryagreement with parents or under a care order sanctioned by the court), or be under adifferent legal order (for residence, special guardianship or, exceptionally, adoption). Theterm family and friends care does not refer to other arrangements involving familymembers, such as relatives providing day care for children, or to private fostering bypeople previously unknown to the child.

Similar definitions apply to arrangements in other countries where it is official policyand/or practice to favour the placement with relatives or close family friends of thosechildren who cannot live at home. The proportion of children cared for in this way, ratherthan through stranger foster care, is higher in some countries than in the UK. It isparticularly so in Spain, but is also higher in Italy, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.Across all continents there are, of course, many other hundreds of thousands of childrenand young people being cared for informally by family members, and doing so in waysand with results that might be instructive for practice nearer to home. The focus of thisreview is much narrower, looking at arrangements that are formal, in the sense of beingsanctioned or scrutinised by state services.

1 There is much less certainty about the overall number of children being raised by relatives and friends, because there are no official statistics aboutchildren who are living with relatives but are not looked after by the local authority (either accommodated or under a care order) will not be in foster careand so will not feature in the statistics about fostered children living with relatives.

Family and friend carers generally receive little support around children’s continuingcontact with parents and others. It was felt, therefore, that collating research evidenceabout what has and has not worked well in managing contact arrangements mightprompt ideas for improvements in social work practice, increased support to carers, andgood outcomes in meeting children’s needs, including their safety and well-being.

1.2 How the review was conducted

The project provided for a limited review of messages from the UK and other countries.The task, therefore, has not been to conduct a comprehensive search of the internationalliterature about family and friends care. Rather, it has been to extract messages aboutcontact arrangements by reviewing key documents in the public domain that are whollyor substantially about family and friends care – through electronic searches, and manualsearches of books and journal articles – and supplementing this with newer materialgained from following leads suggested by colleagues and researchers with particularexpertise in the topic.2

While the starting point has been studies with a specific focus on family and friends care,we have drawn also on broader studies of foster care where the sample includes some –sometimes many – children placed in family and friends rather than stranger foster care.We have included guides as well as research and evaluation studies because guides andhandbooks, whether produced mainly for a carer or professional audience, tend totranslate the messages from research into tips for practice. They are also relevantbecause, like the research studies, they invariably comment on issues about contact. Ithas not been possible in the time to include messages from the many other studiesidentified as relevant to the management of contact for children, especially numerous inrelation to parental separation or divorce.

A caveat is needed about the literature we have drawn on. The data in some countriesdoes not distinguish between children placed with family members and those withstranger foster carers. And there are other differences, both between countries andwithin them, such as in the reasons why children cannot remain with parents, the aim ofplacing them with other people, the attitude of services to continuing contact afterseparation, and the availability or otherwise of state support to enable children to remainat home in the first place. These differences make it difficult to know what messages canbe taken from one country and applied to practice in another and caution is needed indrawing conclusions about this.

More generally, the lack of comparison groups in much research makes it impossible toconclude what works for which particular group of children and in what circumstances.But these are caveats that apply to any use of research findings, not just this review ofmessages about contact for children in family and friends care.

Our starting point is that messages from other countries with similar arrangements forfamily and friends care should not be ignored, and that there is value in consideringevidence that is less than robust. Both, if used with caution, might offer useful pointersfor practice.

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2 Thanks to colleagues in the UK: Steve Howell, Joan Hunt, Elaine Farmer, Clare Roskill, Lynn Chesterman, Gerison Lansdown, Claire Davies and RobertTapsfield. And to those further afield: in Australia (Cathy Humphreys and Meredith Kiraly, from the University of Melbourne), Ireland (Valerie O’Brien, fromUniversity College Dublin), Italy (Cinzia Canali, from Fundazione Zancan, Padua), Spain (Arantxa Mendieta and Helena Sotela, from SiiS Centro deDocumentación y Estudios, San Sebastian), and the USA (Kathleen Riordan, from UNICEF’s Better Carer Network, New York).

1.3 The available evidence about family and friends care

1.3.1 About family and friends care overallThe most comprehensive international literature review of family and friends care overallis that of Paul Nixon in 2007, for Research in Practice. [D3/BB4] He drew on 109publications based on primary research studies: 30 from the UK, 65 from the USA, and14 from other countries (including Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden and others inEurope). He drew on 84 publications about secondary research (23 from the UK and 61from the USA and other countries). He also included a broad range of studies aboutchildren, families, social work and foster care, as well as publications about relevantlegal, policy, practice and training issues.

The most systematic research review is the Cochrane Collaboration study of Winokurand colleagues who reviewed 62 studies where comparisons had been made betweenfamily and friends care and stranger foster care. [BB5]

1.3.2 About a specific group of carersA comprehensive review of the evidence relating to children in family and friends carebecause of parental substance misuse was conducted in 2008 (and updated in 2010) byFrancisco Guillén-Grima and colleagues, for the EU Kinship Carers Project. [B9/AA11]The search focused on materials in English, from Western Europe, South Africa,Australia, New Zealand and North, Central and South America. Many studies includeparents with difficulties arising from their substance misuse (alcohol and other drugs) anda few are concerned exclusively with this issue, including the impact of parentalimprisonment on contact and children’s well-being. [B8, AA7] Other studies with a focuson one specific group of carers include those about grandparents, those about carersfrom a particular minority ethnic group and, of course, those from a particular country.

1.3.3 About contact in family and friends careNixon’s findings on contact arrangements draw on 32 of the documents he reviewed.Since then we have the benefit of Joan Hunt’s study [A7] of children’s contact with theirparents, which draws widely on other studies from the UK and further afield. And the latestreview of family and friends contact, by Meredith Kiraly and Cathy Humphreys, is based ona systematic search of literature published in English during the last decade. [AA16]

Summary points about contact - from Nixon review (p48) [D3/BB4]

In most cases, children and kinship carers want contact with parents and otherfamily members.

Contact with parents and other family members occurs more ‘naturally’ in familyand friends care and contact is far more frequent than in non-kinship care.

Contact can improve placement stability and provide some continuity forchildren.

A significant number of contact arrangements are problematic and place stresson children and carers.

Family and friends carers can go to great lengths to make contact happen andtake responsibility more often for supervising arrangements than is the case withnon-kinship carers.

Contact may need a more differentiated response, with participants beingclearer about the purpose of contact.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

Summary points about staying safe - from Nixon review (p32) [D3/BB4]

Family and friends care appears to provide children with the same level of safetyfrom abuse or neglect as non-kinship foster care.

Family and friends care placements generally have less professional support,services and monitoring; this is likely to affect the research findings.

Paradoxically, one of the key professional concerns about family and friendscare is child safety, yet there is limited evidence to support this concern, thoughresearch in this area is surprisingly underdeveloped.

Family and friends care placements appear as stable and often more stable thannon-kinship foster care.

Compared to non-kinship foster care, family and friends care placements tendto last longer.

Family and friends care placements may offer a greater sense of security andbelonging to children.

Children in family and friends care are far more likely to have a relationship withtheir carers prior to placement and that relationship is more likely to continueinto adulthood.

When children in care move, those in family and friends care are more likely togo to another relative than those in non-kinship foster care.

Family and friends care increases the likelihood of the child remaining in thesame cultural and ethnic environment and relatives can assist with identityissues.

A proportionally larger number of family and friends care placements appear tobe with families from black and minority ethnic families (particularly in the US,although some UK evidence refutes this).

Family and friends care appears to enable children to maintain a wider set ofrelationships and connections to their family and community than doesplacement in non-kinship foster care.

Children are more likely to be placed with siblings in family and friends care thanif they are placed in non-relative care.

1.4 The evidence relied on for this review of contact

This review of contact started with a study of the three reviews described above,extracted key studies and other documents for closer scrutiny, and then scrutinised themore recent material that was identified through the methods explained at the start.Appendix A (see pages 32-47) sets out information about the main studies we haverelied on for information about contact issues, setting out the author and publicationdate, the place of study, the purpose of the study, and the study sample andmethodology. This enables the context to be understood and the reader can judge whichmight be worth pursuing in more detail depending on their particular area of interest. Wehave also included the main guides or handbooks about family and friends care thatinclude contact arrangements.

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The UK publications are grouped in the following way:

A (1-7) Major research studies over the last 35 years3 that are about, or include, familyand friends care. They are mainly government funded, and mainly use comparisongroups and/or some validated measure of testing well-being, and the reports generallyinclude some review of policy and other research findings and some reference to theinternational literature.

B (1-13) Smaller-scale studies, in the form of evaluations or surveys, and largelyundertaken by voluntary organisations or individual local authorities.

C (1-7) Guides, some primarily for family or friend carers and others primarily for aprofessional audience. Most include information and comment on the literature, someincluding international studies.

D (1-5) Reviews of UK research and practice issues, some with reference tointernational studies.

The international publications relied on are set out in the second chart, grouped as AA (1-16) Studies, and BB (1-9) Reviews.

2. The key messages from the literature

The literature about family and friends care shows us the strengths of this provision inkeeping children in contact with parents and other people who are important to themand also highlights the limitations and the problems that can arise. Since we focus moreattention in this review on the areas where improvements might be made, we run the riskof giving the impression that the difficulties for those involved far outweigh the benefits ofchildren being cared for by their relatives or close family friends. The research suggestsotherwise, and the review should be read with this caveat in mind.

Our key messages from the literature are presented under two main headings, one aboutthe early attention that can make for a positive start (getting going) and the other aboutways of promoting successful contact over time (keeping going). The issues explored ineach section aim to cover the key learning from the research and other literature. In someinstances we indicate which of the studies highlight the point we are making – this is forexample only rather than being an exhaustive reference to all the relevant studies. Wehave written it to be of direct primarily relevance to practitioners, particularly thoseresponsible for family and friends care assessments, as well as to carers and indeedparents.

3 Starting with Children who wait [A1], a study rarely mentioned in reviews of family and friends care although its large sample included children fosteredby relatives. In highlighting the need to re-assess many aspects of foster care practice and policy, it urged the avoidance of delay when children in careneeded to be placed in a permanent substitute home. Policy development in the UK in the wake of the study had much less regard to the study’s othermain recommendation: to diminish the need for substitute care through increased preventative work, including the maintenance of close contactbetween parents and their children in care.

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2.1 Getting going

A – Approach family and friends care with a positive mindsetA sound basis for managing contact arrangements well is the knowledge that family andfriends care is in itself the right option to be considering for children. There are severalreasons for being confident about this. For a start, there is the legal requirement toexplore placement with family as the first option for children. Next, it works well forchildren: there are strong and consistent messages from the research, from theperspective of all involved in these arrangements, of the good outcomes for children’ssense of continuity and well-being.

We have known this for a long time. The first major study to compare family and friendscare with stranger foster care concluded that “children fostered by relatives seemed to bedoing better in virtually all respects than those fostered by others and only a fewplacements gave real grounds for concern.” [A2] The children were more often thought tobe achieving their potential at school, behaved better at home, were less troubled abouttheir status and seemed very well integrated in their foster family. A majority maintainedcontact with at least one parent and both social workers and researchers rated placementsvery highly, with nine out of ten considered as providing a good or excellent home.

While the circumstances and backgrounds of many of the children placed more recentlywill be more troubled than those in the past, because of the higher proportion ofplacements now resulting from parental substance misuse and other serious and oftenentrenched difficulties, the positive findings about family and friends care has continued.Research on the most vulnerable children in family and friends care, those removed fromhome because of concerns about significant harm in their birth family, concluded thatmost were doing reasonably well. Placements were not problem free (though a thirdwere) but in most cases contact with parents was not disrupting placements, thechildren had positive relationships with carers and felt settled and safe with them, andhalf had no problems on the tests of well-being used to measure their development. [A7]Other studies point also to the value of family and friends placements in providingcontinuity of culture for children. [B4, B5, AA3, AA4, AA16] The message is clear:approach family and friends care with confidence.

In thinking about this placement option, we can also take heart from the growingknowledge that we can draw on from practice – knowledge about both the sorts ofcontact dilemmas that can and do arise for children, carers, parents and social workers,and about how these might be tackled. Contact features in almost every research studyabout family and friends care and the findings about contact have become the focus ofattention by those developing handbooks and good practice guides for families andprofessionals.

B – Pay attention to contact when assessing family and friends carersContact is relevant for both strands of assessment work, either before or soon afterchildren move to live with relatives or close friends. The first strand is about checking outthe possibility of family or friends caring for the child and the second strand is aboutidentifying and planning for any support needed to take on that role.

In terms of checking ability to care, the contact issues raised in the literature include theability of carers to protect children from stress or harm during contact visits. [A3, A4, B6]Research points to this being a worry in a small minority of cases, often less thananticipated by social workers but sometimes more than anticipated by family and friend

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carers. It needs to be explored openly at this early stage rather than left in the air asunspoken fears or unrealistic expectations.

The other aspect of ability to care relates to the willingness or otherwise of carers to viewcontact as important and beneficial to the child. Here, too, the message is positive. Familyand friends carers show high levels of commitment to the promotion and maintenance ofcontact and they persist with it in the face of difficulties. They are also more likely toconsider themselves, rather than children’s services, as responsible for managing contactarrangements. [B12] Exploring this at the assessment stage offers a good chance ofacknowledging the value that children’s services places on what family and friends carersbring to the child’s care. Starting from this positive stance can also pave the way for seeingfuture problems as practical difficulties to be tackled together rather than as fundamentalobstacles to children continuing to be cared for by their relatives.

The help needed may be both practical and emotional. It will depend on what theassessment shows about the needs of the child and about the best way of meetingthose needs. The literature shows that, in relation to managing contact, children mightneed reassurance about their stability, in the sense of everyone being clear about thepurpose of contact, to avoid problems of parents thinking children will be returning tothem when others expect the placement with carers to last throughout childhood. This isa hard message for any foster carer to have to convey to parents, but is one that canpresent added dilemmas for family and friends carers. Grandparents, in particular, willhave their own feelings about the birth parents’ problems in parenting, which other fostercarers will not have to deal with. The conflict of loyalty can be a difficult issue, needingreal understanding and clear support.

Whatever the issues, the literature is clear about the apprehension family and friends carersmay be feeling at this point. [B6, C4] Whilst they will understand that the local authorityneeds to be satisfied about the care they can offer, and so will expect some sort ofassessment, they are likely to be anxious about the power they feel that the local authoritywill hold over their life, especially where children’s services have been involved because ofpast or current difficulties in the family. Studies point to the importance of social workersfinding ways of working in partnership with potential carers. This is about using models ofassessment where family members and professionals explore circumstances4 and needstogether, paying equal attention to protective as well as risk factors. It is also aboutreaching agreement about what will make a positive difference to the specific child’s well-being and development, knowing how carers can work towards that and making a plan forwhat if anything is needed from others to make the work go well.

In summary, it is crucial to do a good and robust assessment. This is more likely to beachieved through working in partnership with potential carers, in order to understand andplan for the child’s needs and to do the same in relation to the needs of carers andparents also.

C - Understand and plan for the common difficulties that arise over contactWe know enough, from the recurring themes in the literature, for potential carers to bealerted to the problems that may well arise over contact. Explaining these can help makeit more possible that carers will recognise signs of them arising, can help reduce the riskof their being taken by surprise by them, and can make it easier for them to raise and gethelp in dealing with them.

4 Family Rights Group is piloting an assessment tool with a number of local authorities, specifically designed for family and friends carers.

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Yet identifying needs and planning responses to them continues to be a major weaknessin family and friend carer practice. So, too, is the lack of support the family can expect toreceive to resolve issues that do arise. The theme from different countries is of carersgetting less support than other foster carers, notwithstanding the greater hardship facingfamily and friend carers – they tend to be poorer and older, with more health problemsand fewer opportunities for easing out of the debt and financial straits which may havearisen, in part at least, as a result of taking on full-time care of young relatives. Discussioncan help reduce the chance of problems occurring and then continuing.

The common difficulties include worries about the frequency and duration of contact –over time contact may reduce and in some cases cease, even though no-one hadplanned for or wanted that to happen. This may apply to one parent more than another,for example, contact with fathers tends to reduce more quickly than with mothers. Ordifficulties may relate to where the child is living. For example, continuing and positivecontact is more likely for the parent from the side of the family where the child is living;mothers tend to find it more difficult than fathers to keep in touch with their child livingwith the other side; and some parents have difficulties staying in contact with childrenliving with grandparents rather than relatives from their own generation. When childrenfrom sibling groups are placed with different family and friend carers, tensions may arisefrom the extra time and effort needed for contact, even though this arrangement canoffer children the bonus of continued contact with a wider range of relatives. [A3, B1]

Another factor to bear in mind is that parents are likely to be influenced by the extent oftheir involvement with the child before the child needed to move. Intentions to stay inclose contact with their child can be dented as parents struggle with their changedstatus, from intensive carer to occasional visitor.

The nature and strength of relationships will be an important influence, also – betweencarer and parent, parent and child, and child and carer. There is likely to be muchvariation here, as family circumstances differ enormously, though a thought-provokingconclusion from one local authority’s survey of all grandparent carers was that taking ona grandchild was unlikely to improve any family relationship except that with the child inquestion. [B6] In part at least this is likely to be about conflicting loyalties: it can be hardto maintain a positive relationship with your adult child whilst you are caring full time fortheir young child. [B13]

The literature points to the advantages of knowing about these and other difficultiesrather than assuming that all will be well because the child is placed within their ownfamily. Knowledge can then inform action to prevent these difficulties arising or torespond to them if they do arise.

D – Have in mind the views of children, carers and parentsAn important part of the research base to bear in mind is that about the view of children,parents and family or friend carers. Most of the studies drawn on for this reviewincorporate the perspectives of all the people involved, and the messages have beenconsistent over time. So, too, are the messages from the generally small-scale studiesthat have focused solely on one of the groups of people involved. What are some of thefindings to bear in mind about how family and friends care is perceived?

In relation to children - The most recent reported study is of interviews with12 childrenand young people in family and friends care in Scotland. The researchers concluded thatthe children had a mostly positive experience, enjoying a close bond with their carers and

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feeling that they belonged where they were living and that they had a similar experienceto many other children who were living apart from parents but remained within their familynetwork. For the most part, they felt understood and supported. They felt encouraged toattend school and to do well, to be positive and have ambitions for their future and tofollow their interests. They were safe and secure and felt they had a long-term home thatwas immeasurably better than stranger foster care which they feared might entail changefrom one place to another. Contact was not always easy, in that some children felt letdown by their parents and one or two felt torn by conflicting loyalty to parents andcarers. But they were resilient, coping well with bumping into parents who lived close byor having more positive contact with one parent over the other. They retained contactwith siblings living elsewhere and almost all of them had easy contact with members oftheir extended family, especially on the side with whom they were living. Some wanted tohave more contact with relatives from the other side of their family. [B12]

In relation to children’s parents - A recent study is that of 30 parents in the USAwhose children were living full time with family members. Whilst these were informalarrangements, in the sense of not being placements made or sanctioned by childprotection agencies, the reasons for family care being needed for most of the childrenwere nevertheless serious: parental substance misuse, mental illness, learning difficultyand imprisonment, as well as some on account of parents’ work and training demands.The researchers found considerable variation in the experiences and views of parents butwhat emerged clearly in each case was that parents felt that their child was living withsomeone the parents could trust and communicate with and the situation was betterthan it had been previously, when they felt they had been an “invisible absent parent or amajor source of family conflict and strain”. Relationships with their child’s carer was closeand supportive for some parents and, for some, difficult or marked by ambivalence. Thiswas about parents being anxious not to interfere with the relationship between child andcarer, or feeling the loss of their parental role or being troubled by having burdened theirrelative with the stress of caring for their child. They wanted to support their children inhaving a better life and opportunities than they had had. [AA12]Contact with their children was explored. The parents enjoyed spending time involved inactivities with their children. Some were sad when they were apart, and worried that theymight be forgotten by their child, and four of the 30 felt their contact was strained, largelybecause the parents felt children were conscious of past difficulties in their upbringing orwere hard to manage. Overall, the time spent together reinforced the views of parentsthat their child felt loved where they were, were safe, were doing well at school, weregrowing up with a spiritual influence, and were keeping in good contact with othermembers of their family.

This study is included in the following chart, along with other key studies that draw onand report the views expressed about contact by children in family and friends care. Thecomments are those collected by researchers in interviews with children and youngpeople or, in a couple of studies, through focus groups or questionnaires.

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The consistent messages from children and young people about contact arrangementsare these:

• It is better to see people than to worry about what they are like, or why they are not in contact.

• Knowing the truth, and having questions answered, are valued highly.

• Children can be more accepting of their parents’ unusual or difficult behaviour than adults give them credit for.

• Children find it particularly stressful when parents let them down, such as by breakingpromises about visiting, or arriving late, or not giving them enough attention when they are together.

• Not being the centre of attention can make visits from parents easier, as when parents are also visiting other members of the family or when contact occurs casuallyduring a family event.

• Parents may be useful sources of advice, especially about personal issues that children may not feel comfortable discussing with older grandparents caring for them.

• Children feel more comfortable when they feel there is flexibility in arrangements, such as when they have some influence or choice about when, where and how oftenthey meet parents and others.

• Children can feel close to half siblings and worry in particular about younger siblings they have not seen for some time.

Chart First author Total number of children in Number of children whoseref # the study views were canvassed

A2 Rowe 145 39

A3 Farmer 270 16

A4/A7* Hunt 113 14

A5 Aldgate 30 30

A6 Sinclair 596 50

B5 Broad 50 50

B7 Doolan 200 11

B11 Fry 47 47

B12 Burgess 12 12

AA5 O’brian 92 92

AA8 Messing 40 40

AA9 Metzger 107 Unclear

AA16 Kiraly Ongoing study 21 to date

* A7 is a specific study of contact issues, using the same data as in the broader study, A4.

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In relation to family and friends carers - The latest study of family contact is stillunderway. It includes exploring the views of carers through a large survey (500 responsesso far), interviews and focus groups. Parental contact is supported strongly by carers whoare relatives and friends, other than where it is felt damaging for the children: the children’ssafety and well-being are high priorities. Carers hate seeing children forced into distressingcontact arrangements but, at the same time, there is a view that contact with family willsimply happen, for better or worse, and hence the need for support to handle situationsthat are difficult for everyone involved. A striking finding is that carers feel they get littlerespect for the care they offer and find it hard to get a hearing for their views. [AA16]

2.2 Keeping going

A – Build in opportunities to review progressStudies stress the importance of thinking how to boost the chances of placementsworking out well for children. Keeping open the channels of communication and hencesupport is one aspect. Carers feel let down when their contact with social workers andagencies disappears once a placement has been agreed. At the very least there is aneed to reassure carers that there is someone they can turn to for occasional advice andan alternative - and named - person if their original worker cannot continue in that role. Having open communication between family members is important, too. People need toknow, rather than be left guessing, what others are thinking and people need to be ableto explore problems together rather than retreat alone to different corners. The researchpoints to the value of adopting this approach even when care and contact arrangementsseem to have been settled amicably between family members and the future lookspositive. It can often turn out that families are not as flexible or easy going as they wouldlike to be or thought they were. [B6]

Knowing there is the opportunity for regular review can also help guard against driftinginto particularly difficult circumstances, as, for instance, when children are affected byparents being or becoming unreliable over contact, or when carers or young people areconcerned that current arrangements seem more worrying than beneficial.

B – Deal with changeLife and people change, and both can impact on contact arrangements. Many carers willbe switching from being a part-time loving relative or friend to a full-time carer, no lessloving but now facing the burdens and responsibilities that that entails. Others may havebeen caring full time already but the change in status will nevertheless crystallise theirnew role of being in charge all the time and having to set and maintain boundaries. Thereis the added issue, especially for grandparents and other older carers, of having lost thelife of diminishing responsibility and increased freedom that they had anticipated.

So, coping with change of role is something that needs attention. For parents, contact islikely to be less stressful if they have accepted their new contact status and so do notchallenge the role of their child’s carer. But the research warns against this being seen asnecessarily the case: early parental agreement to the placement can change over time,and the problems that do arise may be quite different from the ones that people fearedwould arise.

Other changes in a parent’s circumstances might have an impact, as for example whenparental separation leads to a reduction in contact between the child and one or otherparent.

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An important and practical point to consider is how families will explain their changedcircumstances to others. As in placements with stranger carers, working out a story topresent to those who don’t need to know the full facts can remove the constant worry ofthinking what to say on each occasion.

C – Deal with conflict in relationshipsResearchers have expressed surprise that agencies have traditionally been slow to offercarers help when conflict arises in family and friends care. They report that carers are leftto bear the brunt of this on their own and that the problems confronting them can beconsiderable.A frequent area of tension is the relationship between the parents and the carers. Whilemany arrangements work extremely well from the start, and some may improve with thepassage of time, a recurring theme in the literature is of the hardship generated byconflict between carers and the child’s parent. They range from “strained” to “hostile”and “undermining of the placement”. Given that relationship difficulties are unlikely to leadto the complete cessation of contact, it is all the more important for help to be offeredwith this. Overall, they are more common in relationships between carers and the child’smother, rather than the father, and in circumstances where children are living withpaternal relatives. The difficulties may be compounded – and often caused – by thevulnerability of the parent’s own circumstances and by lingering resentment about whathappened in the past to prompt the need for alternative care. [A7] Families cannot be“fixed”, but identifying difficulties and trying to find ways of easing them should, from theconclusions drawn by researchers, be services available for children living with family andfriends and for those who care for and about them.

D - Deal with boundariesResearch shows the extent to which carers are generally expected to supervise contactmeetings, that they are often charged with supervising contact in quite difficultcircumstances, and that external supervision by agency staff is provided much less thanfor stranger care placements. Leaving this to family and carers creates strain. It alsoreduces the opportunity for timely attention to thinking how arrangements, includingthose for contact, might be amended with a view to things working better in future.

The difficulties that need attention are well rehearsed in the literature. They include careruncertainty about whether they should indeed be supervising contact, how to do this aswell as offer support to the child’s parent, and how dogmatic they should be aboutsetting rules about the timing and frequency of meetings. Findings are positive about thecapacity of carers to cope in these difficult situations, pointing to their soul searchingabout how to do the right thing for everyone concerned whilst being clear that their firstpriority is to ensure that children are kept safe. Case examples in research studieshighlight the expertise that carers have developed, providing a bank of knowledge andtips that researchers suggest could be put to good use in helping other families thinkhow best to cope with similar difficulties. All the guides in the UK chart at Appendix Ahave helpful examples of tried and tested practice. [C1-7, D1-5] So, too, do theresearchers involved in many of the individual studies: for example, the authoritativeapproach of social workers can moderate inappropriate parental behaviour over contact,not just face to face but also via mobile phone, and a non-carer relative might be able torelieve tension by hosting and supervising contact that is difficult for the carer to copewith. [A3]

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E – Attend to other needs that can impact on contactThere is little specific support to help children and adults benefit from contactarrangements. As the literature shows, carers have little knowledge of what they mightbe entitled to, have low expectations of what help will be offered, and have little to sayabout what help they have received. [B13] The most usual help recorded andcommented on, in the research about difficult cases, is staff time escorting children tocontact visits and supervising them, providing a neutral venue for meetings, and helpingwith transport and other costs. This, though, was offered in less than half the relevantcases and was not necessarily continued over time. [A4] These are findings to build on indeveloping better responses to meeting children’s needs.

More might be offered to ease the financial burden on family and friends carers. It is aconstant theme in the literature, not just in relation to whether and how much carersshould be paid, but also about the tensions that arise from lack of money. These can, ofcourse, impact on contact. Doing things together can help children and parents findtopics of conversation, just as talking about what each has been doing can providecurrency for future conversation. The expenses involved before and during contact visitsare likely to be similar to the costs incurred by stranger foster carers but family andfriends carers will be trying to provide those from a less economically secure position. Putsimply, not worrying about money makes it easier for carers to plan for contact andeasier for children and parents to enjoy their time together.

Other difficulties can impact on contact. Worries over accommodation, health, the loss ofa social life are not easy to set aside. When other things are going wrong in life, as whencontact is tricky, they can tend to grow in importance and provide unintendedconsequences.

Finding the right source of help with the various needs is also important. Social workersshould not underestimate the important and valued role they can play. As an early studyon family and friends carers showed us, for older carers in particular social workers canhelp bridge the generation gap, advising on new ways of doing school course work andhomework and new ways in which children and adolescents behave and expect to betreated. [A2] Researchers comment that there will be benefits from social workerscontinuing to offer such support and, if not, of helping carers know about and gainaccess to the broad range of universal and targeted services available to other families intheir area. Helping with all these issues, including tackling financial problems with benefitsand allowances, coping with modern technology, or reassuring carers about parentingtechniques after a long gap since raising their own children, will leave carers feeling lessstressed overall and so hopefully better able to deal with any issues that arise about contact.

F – Think about other separationsThere is little in the literature about managing contact between children and their parentswho are themselves placed away from home through, for instance, severe mental healthproblems, being in hospital or being in prison. What is available relates to parents inprison who have substance misuse problems. [AA7] A strong theme is the wish for moredirect contact with their children and the need for support to achieve that, given thetendency for the parents to think that it may be better to avoid meeting in inhospitablesurroundings and given the travel and other costs involved. The research evidence pointsto the value of family contact in lessening the stress felt by separated parents andchildren whilst at the same time preserving attachments, maintaining family bonds,

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enabling children to retain a clear sense of the truth about their parents, and promotinggood mental health.

As with work to support children affected by parental mental health problems, extra helpmay be needed to reassure children about the likelihood of developing similar difficultiesto their parents when they feel under stress and to help work out how to make best useof contact time in difficult circumstances. There is also the likely need for support toaddress relationship problems between family members so that, on release from prison,parents and carers can cope better with the tensions inherent in trying to restore trust intheir family and adjust to new roles in the wake of criminal activity and its consequences.[B13, AA12]

Children’s contact is not just about meeting or staying in touch with parents. All thestudies reviewed here refer to contact with a broad range of other people: relatives andclose family friends, on both sides of the family, of all ages, and involving differentrelationships. Contact between separated siblings is the aspect that has attracted somespecific – albeit still scant – attention. [B1] Legal status alone can be complex, with somesiblings looked after, others adopted, and others under no order. It follows that thedistance they are placed from one another, the wide range of relatives to negotiate with,and the time needed for making and meeting contact arrangements can be addedcauses of tension for everyone involved.

An added consideration is the situation of children caring for, or being cared for by, theirsister or brother. Although sibling carers are a minority of all family and friends carers,they are still a significant minority. UK research supports findings in the USA that highlightthe large number of older siblings willing to act as carers, despite the difficulties this islikely to present for them, including isolation from peers and community activities andintrusion into their plans for the future.5

3. Concluding comments

In relation to family and friends care, newer studies tend to confirm the findings of olderones: there are enormous benefits for children in being brought up within their extendedfamily, but these placements are not problem free. Carers will often have hardships oftheir own, and they may be dealing with children who have suffered serious adversitiesand difficult parents. Family and friends are as likely to need help over contact issues asstranger foster carers, but they get far less support.

5 Roth et al (2011) Big Bruv, Little Sis, the experiences of sibling carers: an international literature review. London: Family Rights Group.

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APPENDIX A CHART OF UK LITERATURE

KEYA – The major research studies over the last 35 years that are about, or include, family andfriends care. They are mainly government funded, and mainly use comparison groupsand/or some validated measure of testing well-being, and the reports generally includesome review of policy and other research findings and some reference to the internationalliterature.

B – Smaller-scale studies, in the form of evaluations or surveys, and largely undertaken byvoluntary organisations or individual local authorities.

C – Guides, some primarily for family or friend carers and others primarily for a professionalaudience. Most include information and comment on the literature, some includinginternational studies.

D – Reviews of UK research and practice issues, some with reference to internationalstudies.

Where to start looking?The following chart offers some quick pointers to particular features in the studies includedin this review. The list is not intended to be comprehensive but, to suggest good places tostart looking for what you need. The references are to the later charts about the UK andinternational material relied on.

Focus of study (or a UK material International materialprominent feature)

Family & friends care (as A2, A3, A4, A5, A7, B4, B5, AA1, AA2, AA3, AA5, AA6,opposed to this being a B7, B9, B12, B13, C2, C4, AA7, AA8, AA11, AA12, small part of a larger C5, C6, C7, D3, D4 AA16, BB1, BB2, BB6, BB9study, eg of foster care in general)

Advocacy B2, B11, B13

Assesment C4, B6, D3

BME children & families B3, B4, C1, C3 AA2, AA3, AA4, AA12, A16,BB9

Children’s reviews A5, A7, B1, B5, B11, B12 AA8

Contact A7 AA16

Grandparents B2, B3, B6, B8, B10, B11,C3

Parental substance B8, B9/AA11, B13 AA3, AA7, AA11/B9, BB6misuse

UK and international B9/AA11, D3/BB4, D4, D5 AA11/B9, AA16, BB1, perspectives BB4/D3, B6, BB8

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A – THE MAJOR UK RESEARCH STUDIES ABOUT OR INCLUDING FAMILY AND FRIENDS CARE

A1Pub. date 1976

Author J Rowe & L Lambert

Study location33 agencies: 8 local authorities in Scotland, 20 in England & Wales, and 5 voluntary child careagencies

PurposeTo ascertain if there are children in care who need permanent substitute parents and toconsider the reasons and policy implications.

FeaturesThe earliest detailed study that explores contact arrangements (but not in relation to family &friends care), including parental difficulties, children’s reactions and agency lack of support.

Of the full sample, 41% of children had no parental contact and 18% saw one parent at leastonce a month. The longer children stayed in care the less parental contact they had: 37% ofthe children in care for less than 2 years had frequent contact with at least one parent, fallingto 11% for those in care for over 6 years.

Two key policy implications emerged: one about greater prevention, including maintainingclose contact between parents and children in care, the other about finding children anappropriate and timely alternative placement if that was needed.

Sample2,812 children under 11 who had been in care for at least 6 months.

Of the full sample, 225 (8 per cent) were children placed in family & friends care.

Methodology3 questionnaire forms, each used to collect information from an admin person in the agency,the child’s social worker and a researcher.

The data was used to count, describe, consider and comment on the children predicted bytheir social worker as needing permanent placement outside their family.

A2Pub. date 1984

Author J Rowe, H Cain, M Hundleby & A Keane

Study location 5 English local authorities, selected from 21 included in an initial study of children adopted bytheir foster carers

PurposeTo remedy the gap in information about the characteristics and circumstances of children inlong-term foster care.

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Features Relatives as foster parents, chapter 10 of the study, describes the findings about the 55children in family & friends care.

The overall conclusion (which the researchers said surprised them) was that family & friendscare more often met the aims of the children’s placement “fully or in most respects” than didstranger care.

Sample The 145 children from the initial study who had not been adopted from foster care.

These included 55 children in family & friends care: 39 with grandparents, 11 with uncles andaunts, 3 with siblings, and 2 with cousins.

MethodologyIn relation to those in family & friends care, interviews were held with 53 carers, 39 children,16 natural parents and 54 social workers. Plus scrutiny of social work files in all 55 cases.

A3Pub. date 2008

Author E Farmer & S Moyers

Study location 4 English local authorities

PurposeTo ascertain how well family & friends care placements work, what helps them succeed, whatmore help is needed, and what factors influence placement breakdown.

FeaturesA family & friends care study.

Highlights the greater disadvantage (compared with stranger foster carers) in the circumstancesof family & friends carers, the extra difficulties surrounding contact with parents, the greaterpersistence in coping with children’s difficulties, and the less social support received.

Sample270 children: 142 in family and friends care and the rest in stranger foster care.

MethodologyCase files were reviewed and, for 32 of the children in family & friends care, interviews wereheld with carers, social workers, children and birth parents.

A4Pub. date 2008

Author J Hunt, S Waterhouse & E Lutman


PurposeTo assess the extent to which family & friends care met the objective of children’s services toensure that children were securely attached to carers who were capable of providing a safeand effective placement throughout childhood.

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Highlights that family & friends care can result in positive outcomes and that it requires carefulassessment and adequate support.

Sample113 children, removed from parental care by the courts because of child protection concernsand placed in long-term family & friends care.

MethodologyFile information and interviews with all parties.

A5Pub. date 2009

Author J Aldgate

Study location 5 local authorities in Scotland

PurposeTo inform policy development about looked after children in Scotland by reviewing what it waslike to grow up in family & friends care.


Children’s views.

Highlights the importance to children of their connections with absent parents, siblings, widerfamily members, friends, and teachers and other adults.

Sample30 children from 24 households. The children were aged 8 and over and had been in family &friends care for at least 6 months.

MethodologyInterviews with the children, plus with their carers: 16 grandparents, 3 great-grandparents, 2aunts, 1 uncle and 2 friends of parents. Standardised tests and ecomaps also used.

Issues explored included the children’s circumstances, daily life, networks, contact withparents and siblings, and links with social workers; the experiences of carers; and localauthority practice.

A6Pub. date 2010

Author I Sinclair

Study location English local authorities (13 in The Permanence Study and 7 in The Fostering Studies)

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PurposeAn article that analyses findings from studies published in 2005 and 2007.

1 The Permanence Study: what were the differences in children’s well-being and stabilityoutcomes between 3 types of foster care: family & friends, stranger and private or voluntaryagency care?

2 The Fostering Studies: what was the role of carers, why did some placements succeed,why children fared differently?

FeaturesHighlights the predominant use of family & friends care for children entering care relativelyyoung and staying a long time.

Supports other findings of family & friends carers often being more disadvantaged, receivingless financial help than stranger carers, and having difficulties over contact.

The children scored better on the researcher scales of well-being, and placements were morelikely to last longer and be deemed to be achieving their purpose.

Sample & methodology1 The Permanence Study: a prospective longitudinal study over 3 years, with sample of 7,400children. Data from social work files, questionnaires, interviews with social workers andmanagers, and 95 case studies.

2 The Fostering Studies: a 3-year follow-up of 596 children. Data from files and questionnairesand, in 50 cases, the views of carers, children, and their social workers.

A7Pub. date 2010

Author J Hunt


PurposeA study of parental contact with children placed in family & friends care. This was a follow-upstudy to the children whose overall outcomes in family & friends care were studied in A4 above.

Features Highlights and explores the strengths, limitations and problems of family & friends care inmaintaining contact between children and parents.

Highlights the increased risk of placement disruption (and need for extra support) for olderchildren, for those with aunts and uncles, and those where carer and child are less familiarwith each other.

In relation to contact, it concludes that some difficulties might be alleviated if there were morefocus on contact planning at the assessment stage and, if needed, throughout theplacement.

Includes comparison with other UK and international findings about contact.

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Sample113 children, removed from parental care by the courts because of child protection concernsand placed in long-term family & friends care: 70 with grandparents, 29 with aunts or uncles,8 with another relative, and 6 with a family friend.

With a comparison group of 31children placed in stranger foster care by the same 2 localauthorities.

MethodologyThe placements were followed up 3 years after the initial study (A4 above).

Data was collected from all the children’s services files, and interviews held with 37 family &friend carers, 24 social workers, 14 children and 2 birth parents.

The contact questions explored were about how plans worked out, whether children wereplaced at risk, difficulties in adult relationships, the problems that arose, and the supportservices in place.

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B – SMALLER-SCALE STUDIES, EVALUATIONS AND SURVEYS

B1Pub. date 1992

Author A Bilson & R Barker

Study location NE England (5 local authority areas) & Scotland (1 local authority)

PurposeTo understand the placement patterns of children from sibling groups and to explore thelevels of contact between separated siblings.

FeaturesMost (3 in 4) children were placed separately from some or all of their siblings in care. Siblings whowere placed together were almost always placed with a family, including family & friends care.

In relation to contact, most children had the same contact with siblings as they did with parents,but a significant minority had contact with siblings even if they had no contact with a parent.

The range of circumstances in which siblings were living (in care, not in care, adopted) madefor added difficulties in maintaining contact. Other problems related to insufficient earlyattention to establishing a contact routine, distance between placements and finances.

Sample1068 children, of whom 1015 were from the English authorities.

Some were in family & friends care but precise information not provided.

MethodologyA questionnaire survey completed by social workers on children in care placed separatelyfrom their parents.

The survey was part of the Parental Contact Reseach Project, a research initiative about issuesfor children in care after implementation of the Children Act 1989. Issues explored includedthose highlighted in previous research: the influence of siblings on a child’s personality,development and sense of identity; their place in their family; and outcomes from care.

B2Pub. date 1997

Author J Tunnard & J Thoburn

Study location 35 English & Welsh local authorities

PurposeTo evaluate a Grandparents’ Association project offering independent advice (from volunteersupporters who were qualified professionals) to grandparents who needed to negotiate withthe local authority about contact and other plans for their grandchildren.

FeaturesGrandparents.

Advocacy from social work advisers.

Contact was the most common problem, including disputes with social workers about thesupport provided. In 6 cases grandparents wanted to offer full-time care.

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Sample48 grandparents with a range of difficulties.

MethodologyAnalysis of data on the referral sheet to the project, the monthly progress reports on eachcase, the closing sheet, correspondence between the supporters and the local authoritysocial workers, a postal questionnaire completed by grandparents and supporters at the endof the case.

Plus, in 10 cases, an interview with grandparents and supporters and a brief questionnairecompleted by social workers.

Attendance at 4 meetings that the project coordinator and legal adviser held for the supporters.

B3Pub. date 2001

Author A Richards

Study location England, Wales & Scotland

PurposeTo identify the experiences and needs of grandparents in a caring role, what worked anddidn’t work, and the support needed; to draw out messages and recommendations for legaland practice changes; and to produce a guide for grandparents (C7 below).

FeaturesSpecial attention given to involving BME grandparents, including those from Chinese andIndian Sikh community. Chapter 14 is about particular messages from BME families.

Sample180 grandparents: 169 via a postal questionnaire and 11 via verbal response to thequestions.

Methodology The questionnaires were distributed to local support groups for grandparents, those incontact with FRG’s phone advice service, social workers, and other contacts.

Plus group discussion with 41 grandparents in 4 areas, 4 group events for 62 grandparentsorganised through BME community organisations, and 2 one-day events for those who hadcompleted the questionnaire.

B4Pub. date 2001

Author S Laws

Study location 1 English local authority

PurposeTo gain the views of the family & friends carers. This is the second of 3 studies which, overalland over 3 years, examined the 120 family & friend placements known to the local authority(see B5 below for study 3).

FeaturesA BME focus: half the children were Caribbean or Guyanese.

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Sample The 22 carers of the 35 children who were still living with a carer at the time of this second(follow-up) study. They had been there for at least 2 years.

MethodologyInterviews at home with 10 carers, all women: 4 grandparents, 2 aunts, 2 sisters and 2 friends.

The first study had collected data from the files of social workers and had interviewed socialworkers working with 70 of the 120 children in family & friend care.

B5Pub. date 2001

Author B Broad, R Hayes & C Rushforth

Study location 1 English local authority (the same as in B3 above)

PurposeTo examine the role and contribution of family & friends care in supporting young people’stransition to adulthood.

FeaturesAs B4 above. Contact was a key theme, with both positive and negative aspects identified,with positives mentioned twice as often as negatives.

Sample50 young people living in family & friends care (average age 16.5 years).

MethodologyInterviews with the young people, carers and social workers.

B6Pub. date 2001

Author D Pitcher

Study location 1 English local authority

PurposeTo understand the experience of grandparents who had been assessed as family carers,following child protection concerns, and to develop an assessment framework and guidingprinciples.

FeaturesGrandparent carers.

Assessment.

SampleAll 33 grandparents known to the local authority.

MethodologyInterviews with families, plus some conducted separately with children and parents.Plus consultation with the social workers who assessed, planned and supported the placements.

Issues explored were the circumstances of placement and grandparents’ feelings about thatand their views on the assessment experience.

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B7Pub. date 2004

Author M Doolan, P Nixon & P Lawrence


PurposeTo discover, through action-based research in different types of authority, what works in family& friends care and what can help improve social work practice and service provision.


SamplePlacements for 163 children in one local authority and 37 in the other.

MethodologyQuestionnaires to collect the views of carers, social workers and children. Plus interviews with11children in the larger authority.

B8Pub. date 2006

Author Grandparents Plus & Adfam

Study location UK

PurposeA report exploring the experiences and needs of grandparents when raising theirgrandchildren as a result of parental drug or alcohol misuse.

FeaturesParental substance misuse.

Sample & methodologyConsultation with grandparents in touch with both organisations, with findings and quoteslinked to a literature review prepared by C Hogg.

B9Pub. date 2009

Author EU Kinship Carers Project

Study location UK, as one of 7 partners, the others being Belgium, Italy, Lithuania, Romania,Spain and Sweden.

PurposeTo report on the needs of family & friends carers, with a view to improve preventionprogrammes to reduce the impact on children of parental drug and alcohol misuse.


Sample183 carers (between 17 and 35 from each country): 115 grandmothers, 35 aunts, 13grandfathers, 8 uncles, 4 siblings, 2 great aunts and 6 other relatives.

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MethodologyInterviews with 183 carers (17-35 from each country) about the life of the children andthemselves.

Reports from each country were combined into one report. Plus on-line video clips of carersfrom Scotland and Spain speaking.

B10Pub. date 2010

Author B Broad

Study location UK

PurposeTo survey the impact on personal, family and social relationships of being a grandparent,including the experience of caring full time for a grandchild.


Sample193 grandparents of whom 72 were family & friend carers. Almost half of the full samplereported contact difficulties.

MethodologyAn on-line survey of members of the Grandparents’ Association and invitations to others viarelevant websites.

B11Pub. date 2010

AuthorJ Fry (editor)

Study location England

PurposeTo collect views to inform the development of a project to provide an advocacy service forchildren being raised by their grandparents.

FeaturesChildren’s views.

Grandparent carers.

Sample 47 children in family & friends care and placed with grandparents. They were contacted viathe Grandparents’ Association networks and other relevant groups.

MethodologyInterviews with the children, to ascertain their views about any help they needed forthemselves or their carers, how they felt about family finance, whether they wanted to meetother children in similar placements, and how to get their views heard.

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B12Pub. date 2010

Author C Burgess, F Rossvoll, B Wallace & B Daniel

Study location Scotland

PurposeTo help counter the lack of research studies where the main information comes from theperspective of children in family & friends care.

FeaturesChildren’s views.

Sample12 children aged 11 to 17 and living in family & friends care. They were contacted via a localsupport group for carers and children.

MethodologyThe children were interviewed, at home or at the voluntary agency office, and asked abouttheir living situation, sense of belonging, contact with family members, wider network, and theexperience of being in family & friends care.

B13Pub. date 2010

Author K Dryburgh

Study location Scotland

PurposeTo examine family & friends care in Scotland, including its impact on the carers.

FeaturesAdvocacy from independent specialist advisers.

Records the family problems leading to family & friends care: substance misuse (36%),bereavement (24%), neglect (16%), prison (13%), health (5%), domestic violence (4%).

Explores the financial impact of caring, and entitlement to benefits and statutory anddiscretional local authority allowances. Loss of benefit entitlement on receipt of carerallowances can leave families worse off.

Sample368 family & friends carers who contacted the CAB in 2009: grandparents (74%), aunts anduncles (19%), sibling (3%), great grandparent (2%), family friend (1%). Most calls were aboutbenefits or care allowances.

MethodologyInformation recorded on the Social Policy Feedback Forms at the time of enquiry.

Plus a focus group and informal interviews to collect information about the views of being acarer, including the problems experienced and the support needed.

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C – GUIDES FOR FAMILY AND FRIEND CARERS AND PROFESSIONALS

C1Pub. date 1991

Author T Almas

PurposeA practice guide for preparing and training prospective Asian foster and adoptive parents.

FeaturesBME focus.

Topics CoveredComments on family & friends care, and includes discussion of contact and children’s safety.

C2Pub. date 2004

Author A Morgan

PurposeA guide for family & friends carers.

FeaturesIt draws on FRG’s survey of grandparent views and experiences (B3 above), broadens out toother carers and other practice and research sources, and is intended to be used inconjunction with C5 below).

Focus on the emotional impact of caring and on ways of managing stressful situations.

Topics CoveredContents include how caring can affect people, what support to ask for and how, how to helpthe children involved, and how the changed roles can impact on relationships betweendifferent family members.

Contact is identified as one possibly stressful time when external support may be needed.

C3Pub. date 2005

Author B Broad & A Skinner

PurposeA child-centred good practice guide to family & friends care.


BME carers and families.

Topics CoveredContents include assessment principles and practice, legal options, financial and othersupport available, whole-family support services, contact and family relationships, and work intherapeutic settings.

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C4Pub. date 2006

Author The Fostering Network

PurposeA resource book about family & friends care, targeted mainly at carers but also for socialworkers.

FeaturesFocus on the need to work with parents and with both sides of the child’s family, and tips forplanning and reviewing arrangements.

Focus on the assessment process and the skills and training needed to be a carer.

Topics CoveredContents include the legal situation, the process of approval, financial issues, working withthe local authority, understanding what to expect and how to deal with children’s behaviour,and keeping children safe.

C5Pub. date 2007

Author C Roskill

PurposeA guide for family & friends carers, to update and extend FRG’s earlier guide for grandparentcarers. It is intended to be used with C2 above.

FeaturesIt draws on ideas gained from FRG’s advice line, on-line discussion board and events forcarers.

Topics CoveredContents include research findings about user views and tips about legal status and options, local authority support and protection, legal help and going to court, and getting help with finances and children’s education. It deals with fears about assessment and contact difficulties.

C6Pub. date 2006

Author H Argent

PurposePractical tips to help local authority practitioners and managers support family & friends care.

FeaturesContact issues and family relationships.

Topics CoveredContents include working with the whole family and social network, recognising and dealingwith the challenge of contact, preparing carers for loyalties and conflicts associated withfamily change, and being aware of diversity.

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C7Pub. date 2009

Author FRG

PurposeA practice guide for local authorities about family & friends care.

FeaturesDeveloped in response to the wide variation in local authority services, commitment, andwritten policies and procedures. Informed by promising practice collected through a survey ofauthorities and advice work with carers.

Topics CoveredContents include principles of good practice in family & friends care, and how to ensurecarers receive adequate support in relation to assessment, money and other practical needs.

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D – REVIEWS OF UK RESEARCH AND PRACTICE ISSUES

D1Pub. date 2004

Author C Sellick, J Thoburn & T Philpot

PurposeA revised version of What works in family placement?

FeaturesAbout fostering and adoption care.

With a small section on research and practice in family & friends care that draws on the viewsof children and carers.

UK focus.

Topics CoveredQuestions explored: which factors does research indicate are likely to be associated withpositive outcomes? how to evaluate your practice and what outcome measures to use? whatdoes research not tell you? in what areas are research messages unclear or contradictory?

D2Pub. date 2005

Author I Sinclair

PurposeAn overview of 16 research studies in foster care, mainly government funded, exploring whatmakes for a successful placement and what influences placement outcomes.

FeaturesReferences to family & friends care.

UK focus.

Topics CoveredSections on family & friends care include contact arrangements and sound recommendationsfor informing government policy development.

Examines the best ways of recruiting, retaining and supporting foster carers, including family& friend carers.

D3Pub. date 2008

Author P Nixon

PurposeTo examine contemporary issues and trends in family & friends care by reviewing the UK andinternational literature.

FeaturesContact includes studies from the UK, Sweden, Ireland and the USA.

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Focus on safety, assessment, planning and review, finances, and social work support.

UK and international focus.

Topics CoveredContents cover the impact of family & friends care on children, carers and families; howcurrent services are responding to the needs of placements; and a framework for futureservice provision.

D4Pub. date 2009

Author J Hunt (ed)

PurposeA special edition about research, policy and practice in family & friends care.

FeaturesProduced in light of government reminders about this being the first option for children and inanticipation of a new framework of service expectations.

With a call for support to be provided on the basis of the child’s needs not legal status, andfor better data collection on all children living in family & friends care, including those ininformal arrangements unknown to children’s services.

UK and international focus.

Topics CoveredResearch studies from England, Scotland, Spain, exploring the different perspectives of familymembers and professionals.

Plus some common practice issues - about assessment, where to base support services,and local authority developments and challenges around financial help.

D5Pub. date 2010

Author E Fernandez & R Barth (eds)

PurposeA book of 15 chapters on different aspects of foster care and practice in different countries.

FeaturesFamily & friends care is explored, in relation to effectiveness (including placement stability),comparison with stranger foster care, and policy developments.

Topics CoveredIncludes discussion of family & friends care in Denmark, England, the Netherlands and Spain.

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APPENDIX B UK REFERENCES

A1 Rowe J and Lambert L (1976) Children who wait. London: Association of BritishAdoption Agencies (now BAAF).

A2 Rowe J, Cain H, Hundleby M and Keane A (1984) Long-term Foster Care. London:Batsford.

A3 Farmer E & Moyers (2008) Kinship Care: Fostering Effective Family and FriendsPlacements. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

A4 Hunt J, Waterhouse S and Lutman E (2008) Keeping Them in the Family: Outcomesfor Children Placed in Kinship Care through Care Proceedings. British Association forAdoption and Fostering (BAAF).

A5 Aldgate J and McIntosh M (2006) Looking After the Family: a study of childrenlooked after in kinship care in Scotland. Edinburgh: Social Work Inspection Agency.

A6 Sinclair I, Chapter 10, What Makes for Effective Foster Care: Some Issues, in EFernandez and R Barth (eds) How Does Foster Care Work? International Evidence onOutcomes. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. The chapter analyses findings fromwhat are called (1) the Permanence Study and (2) the Fostering Studies: (1) Sinclair I,Baker C, Lee J & Gibbs I (2005) The Pursuit of Permanence: a study of the English caresystem. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. (2) Sinclair I, Baker C, Wilson K & Gibbs I(2005) Foster Children: Where They Go and How They Do. London: JKP; Sinclair I, Gibbs Iand Wilson K (2004) Foster Carers: Why They Stay and Why They Leave. London: JKP.

A7 Hunt J, Waterhouse S and Lutman E (2010) Parental contact for children placed inkinship care through care proceedings. Child and Family Law Quarterly. 22(1), 71-92.Bristol: Jordan Publishing.

B1 Bilson A & Barker R (1992) Siblings of children in care or accommodation: aneglected area of practice. Practice, 6(4), 307-318.

B2 Tunnard J & Thoburn J (1997) The Grandparents’ Supporters Project: Anindependent evaluation. Harlow: Grandparents Federation.

B3 Richards A (2001) Second Time Around: A Survey of Grandparents Raising theirGrandchildren. London: Family Rights Group.

B4 Laws S (2001) ‘Looking after children within the extended family: carers’ views’ inBroad B (ed), Kinship Care: The placement choice for children and young people. LymeRegis: Russell House Publishing.

B5 Broad B, Hayes R and Rushforth C (2001) Kith and Kin: Kinship care for vulnerableyoung people. London: National Children’s Bureau, Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

B6 Pitcher D (2001) ‘Assessing Grandparent Carers: A framework’ in Broad B (ed),Kinship Care: The placement choice for children and young people. Lyme Regis: RussellHouse Publishing

B7 Doolan M, Nixon P and Lawrence P (2004) Growing Up in the Care of Relatives orFriends: Delivering best practice for children in family and friends care. London: FamilyRights Group.

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B8 Grandparents Plus & Adfam (2006) Forgotten Families. The needs and experiences ofgrandparents who care for children whose parents misuse drugs and alcohol.

B9 EU Kinship Carers Project (2009) Forgotten Families. The needs of kinship carers inEurope. Mentor UK.

B10 Broad B (2010) Grandparent’s Voices. A research study of the views ofgrandparents who face up to challenging family situations. Essex: The Grandparents’Association.

B11 Fry J (ed) (2010) Children’s Voices: The stories of children raised by theirgrandparents. Harlow: The Grandparents’ Association.

B12 Burgess C, Rossvoll F, Wallace B and Daniel B (2010). 'It's just like another home,just another family, so it's nae different' Children's voices in kinship care: a researchstudy about the experience of children in kinship care in Scotland. Child and FamilySocial Work, 15, 297-306.

B13 Dryburgh K (2010) Relative value. The experiences of kinship carers using theScottish CAB Service. Citizens Advice Scotland.

C1 Almas T (1991) New Families in Yorkshire. Fostering and Adoption in Asian Families.A guide for the preparation and training of Asian adoptive and foster families. Barnardo’s.

C2 Morgan A (2004) A Survival Guide for Family and Friends Carers. London: FamilyRights Group.

C3 Broad B & Skinner A (2005) Relative benefits: placing children in kinship care.London: (BAAF).

C4 The Fostering Network (2006) Prepared to care: a resource book for family andfriends carers. London: The Fostering Network.

C5 Roskill R (2007) Wider family matters: a guide for family and friends raising childrenwho cannot live with their parents. London: FRG.

C6 Argent A (2009) Ten Top Tips: Supporting Kinship Placements. London: BAAF.

C7 Family Rights Group (2009) Family and Friends Care: A Guide to Good Practice forLocal Authorities. London: Family Rights Group.

D1 Sellick C, Thoburn J and Philpot T (2004) What works in adoption and foster care?Essex: Barnardo’s.

D2 Sinclair I (2005) Fostering Now: Messages from Research. London: Jessica Kingsley.

D3 Nixon P (2008) Relatively speaking: developments in research and practice in kinshipcare. Dartington: Research in Practice.

D4 Hunt J (ed) (2009) Special issue: Kinship care. Adoption & Fostering QuarterlyJournal. Volume 3, Autumn. London: BAAF.

D5 Fernandez E and Barth R (eds) (2010) How Does Foster Care Work? InternationalEvidence on Outcomes. JKP.

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APPENDIX C CHART OF INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE

KEY

AA – Research studies BB – Reviews

Note to readers: Country studies use different terms to describe the formal arrangementsfor caring for children by relatives and friends. For ease, we use the term “family & friendscare”, as defined in the main body of the literature review, and use “stranger foster care”to describe other fostering arrangements.

AA – RESEARCH STUDIES

AA1Pub. date 1994

Author J Berrick, R Barth & B Needell

Country USA

PurposeTo help fill the gaps in information about family & friends care.

FeaturesHighlights the advantages of family & friends care and the need to consider and providesupport to address the risk factors involved.

There were marked differences in services provided and in agency working practice.

Contact issues explored.

SampleA random sample of half the foster care database of California, with half the sample beingfamily & friends carers and the other half stranger foster carers.

General information was collected from 1,178 carers (40:60 family & friends v. stranger). Plus,more detailed information from 600 (246 family & friends and 354 stranger).

MethodologyA brief postal survey to collect demographic data, with an invitation to complete a follow-upsurvey by post or phone.

The second survey included a scale for rating social worker quality and child protection workand a scale for rating child behaviour problems. Other questions were about carer health andmental health, child education and health needs, the dynamics between children and adults,plans and expectations for the child, and services provided.

AA2Pub. date 1994

Author N Le Prohn

Country USA

PurposeTo examine how family & friends carers perceived their role.

LITERATURE REVIEW

53

FeaturesIn relation to contact, the family & friends carers were significantly more likely to say they wereresponsible for ensuring the child's continued contact with their parent/s than were strangerfoster carers.

There was a need, for both types of carers, for greater clarity about the roles requested ofthem.

A focus on BME issues, as almost three-quarters of family & friends carers were black,compared with a quarter of stranger carers. Sample

A private foster care agency in California providing long-term placements. All 129 family &friends carers were included in the sample, plus a random selection of 175 of the 462stranger carers. Data was collected from 82 family & friends carers and 98 stranger carers.

MethodologyPostal survey and phone interviews with carers, including scales to measure role perception(what being a carer means). Plus interviews with social workers of all the families.

AA3Pub. date 1996

Author M Harris

Country USA

PurposeTo explore why some children in family & friends care return home and others remain in care,amongst the ethnic gp with the highest rate of placement in family & friends care.

FeaturesBME focus.

Parental substance misuse.

Highlights the value mothers placed on the care provided to their children by relatives andclose friends, and the support mothers needed during a placement and after the child’sreturn home.

Help with relationships between mothers and carers was felt to be important, and would beculturally appropriate, but few services for any needs had been provided.

Sample20 African American mothers with a child placed in family & friends care by one of threeChicago voluntary agencies. Half the children had been returned from care to live with theirmother.

MethodologyAn extensive interview at the mother’s home or the agency’s office or a substance misusetreatment facility.

Demographic data was collected, as were the mothers’ perceptions about the removal andreturn of the child, their caregiving strengths, problems that affect caregiving ability, andservices received. Scales were used to measure relationships, severity of substance misuseand extended family support.

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AA4Pub. date 1999

Author D Pemberton

Country Ireland

PurposeTo report on the experience of the Shared Rearing Service, devised to enable Travellerchildren to be placed with Traveller foster carers.

FeaturesBME focus. The service was part of the government’s approach to acknowledging thedistinctive culture and lifestyle of Travellers, as well as to reduce the disproportionate numberof Traveller children coming into and staying in care.

Contact arrangements were felt to work well because the carers expected and accepted thatparents would come to visit their children with a large group of other relatives. They alsoregarded it as normal for children living with them in standard housing to have contact withrelatives living on sites and in trailers. Lack of space made it difficult to hold supervisedcontact meetings in, say, health centres.

Placement with the carers meant that the children’s growing sense of identity, and of theirown place in their community, were encouraged and preserved.

SampleThe 11 families recruited to be foster carers and the 34 children (aged 0 to 16) placed withthem over the period. The placements were for a range of reasons – emergency care, respitecare, short- and long-term stay and, for older children, holiday and weekend stays.

MethodologyA qualitative study, describing the placements and drawing lessons from them.

The evaluation explored the advantages for children of being placed within the Travellercommunity. Carers understood the children’s way of life. Their familiarity with speech patternsand dialects enabled children to adjust quickly. Children felt firmly linked into their communitynetwork. Their behaviour, including talking loudly and asking personal questions ofnewcomers, was understood. Older children benefitted from seeing how their elders handleddiscrimination.

AA5Pub. date 2001

Author V O’Brien

Country Ireland

PurposeTo establish baseline data on the children and families involved in family & friends care, toexamine the views of famillies and professionals, and to explore the value of a systemicapproach to care networks.

FeaturesEmergency placements.

Different perspectives on contact.

LITERATURE REVIEW

55

Sample92 children in family & friends care.

MethodologyFile data about the processes of assessment, decision making and work after assessment.

Interviews with parents, children, relatives and social workers

AA6Pub. date 2002

Author J Ehrle & R Geen

Country USA

PurposeTo increase knowledge about the differences between children placed in family & friends careand those with stranger foster carers and to update what is known about the large number ofchildren living in family & friends care but under informal arrangements.

FeaturesFindings suggest that children in family & friends care face greater hardship than other carersand are less likely than expected to receive services to overcome those disadvantages. Sample

Data on 462 children, from a national annual phone survey that measures economic, healthand social characteristics.

MethodologyData analysis from the child sample of the survey.

AA7Pub. date 2004

Author A Smith, K Krisman, A Strozier & M Marley

Country USA

PurposeTo examine the experience of children and the concerns and experiences of parents whosechildren are cared for by relatives, with a view to developing a systematic and supportiveresponse that helps children, carers and parents adjust to the disruption and trauma ofparental imprisonment and substance misuse.

FeaturesImprisonment

Parental substance misuse

Highlights parental satisfaction with the care given and an acknowledgement that substancemisuse had had a negative impact on their family.

In relation to contact, 3 in 4 parents had not seen their child whilst in prison. Some had phoneand letter contact but others were constrained by high phone costs and poor literacy. Over 3in 4 parents wanted to have more direct contact with children.

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Almost half the children had not seen their other parent, some because of imprisonment too.

Sample25 parents (20 fathers and 5 mothers) in prison and undertaking a substance misuse treatmentprogramme with a child (aged 4 months to 19 years) in family & friends care (some informal).

Carers were mainly grandparents, with more from the mother’s side. They had often cared forthe child before the parent’s imprisonment, for periods of upto 10 years.

Most parents misused polysubstances and half had problems with both alcohol and drugs.Their average drug misuse was over 10 years.

MethodologyA questionnaire that was developed and piloted with the help of families in similar circumstances.

AA8Pub. date 2006

Author J Messing

Country Australia

PurposeTo understand the views and feelings of children living with relatives from their wider family.

FeaturesChildren’s views

Highlights that children generally had contact with their mother but were often disappointedby the poor quality of relationship. Fathers were largely absent from their life. Carers weredescribed in very positive terms. Placements were described as stable, with children knowingwhich other relative would care for them if need be in the future.

Sample40 children (aged 10-14) in the care of a relative: 30 in family & friends foster care and the restinformally. Most children and carers were recruited through fliers and mailings from severalfamily & friends care projects in Northern California.

Methodology7 focus groups of 4-8 children, with questions about the transition into care, familyrelationships, the stigma of being in care, and placement stability.

Carers completed a questionnaire about demographics, and answered questions on a childbehaviour scale.

AA9Pub. date 2008

Author J Metzger

Country USA

PurposeTo compare the emotional and behavioural functioning of children in family & friends care andstranger foster care.

LITERATURE REVIEW

57

FeaturesThe children in family & friends care were found to have more robust self-concept and resilience.

In relation to contact, although more of the mothers of the children in family & friends carewere homeless or misusing substances, they visited their children more often.

Sample107 children (aged 7+) in foster care placements organised by a voluntary agency in NewYork City: 52 were in family & friends care and 55 in stranger care.

MethodologyA questionnaire survey of children and carers. Plus 4 sets of scales, to measure the children’sself-concept, level of adjustment and social supports, and the carers’ degree of satisfactionwith their role.

AA10Pub. date 2009

Author J Palacios & J Jimenez

Country Spain

PurposeTo compare the different foster care arrangements in Spain (in Andalusia), where family &friends care is much more common than stranger foster care.

FeaturesHighlights the benefits and problems in family & friends care. Benefits include placement at anearly age (younger children had fewer developmental problems) and fewer moves. Theproblems in family & friends care include carer stress and poor support from child protectionservices.

In relation to contact, children had more than those in stranger foster care but carers reportedthem as more troublesome than do other carers.

Sample218 foster carers and children: 151 in family & friends care and 67 in stranger foster care.

MethodologyInformation from carers was collected using 5 sets of scales – about the children’s basicneeds, the quality of stimulation given, the social support available, the parenting styles used,and stress related to children’s parents.

The children were tested on 2 scales: the SDQ for behaviour problems and the other fordevelopmental progress.

AA11Pub. date 2009


Country Belgium, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the UK (England & Scotland)

PurposeTo report on the needs of family & friends carers, with a view to improve preventionprogrammes to reduce the impact on children of parental drug and alcohol misuse.

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Sample183 carers (between 17 and 35 from each country): 115 grandmothers, 35 aunts, 13grandfathers, 8 uncles, 4 siblings, 2 great aunts and 6 other relatives.

MethodologyInterviews with 183 carers (17-35 from each country) about the life of the children andthemselves.

Reports from each country were combined into one report. Plus on-line video clips of carersfrom Scotland and Spain speaking.

AA12Pub. date 2009

Author L Gleeson

Country USA

PurposeTo understand the experiences of informal family & friends care with a view to informing socialwork practice with children and families who are outside the child protection system.

FeaturesMajority BME families.

Parents valued their child being safe, living with someone they trusted and couldcommunicate with regularly.

Strained relationships were about carers being deemed overprotective, the ambivalenceparents felt about not caring for their children, and difficulties in setting aside past problemssuch as substance misuse.

In relation to contact, some parents found it hard to relate to their children because theystruggled to find or define a role for themselves that did not create conflict with the child’scarer.

The social work practice implications included the need to learn about parental strengths, toassess the importance of the child to parents, and the parent’s capacity to play a positiverole in their child’s life. Support needed was about finances, mediating parent-carerrelationships, and facilitating family decision making about the care of children. Extra helpmay be needed in case of substance misuse and past criminal activity – help to find work,access treatment, repair and redefine relationships, and cope with the future.

Sample30 parents with children in family & friends care (informal).

MethodologyInterviews with parents, as part of a bigger study, of interviews with 207 carers.

LITERATURE REVIEW

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AA13Pub. date 2010

Author J Strijker

Country Netherlands

PurposeTo look at the characteristics of children in foster care and their outcomes in terms ofplacement success and breakdown, in a system where a third of the children are cared for byrelatives.

FeaturesIn relation to contact, the higher frequency of visits in the parental home (as opposed to visitsin a neutral place or the carer’s home), and the lack of permission from parents for children tobe living away from them, was associated with higher placement breakdown.

Sample 419 children in foster care, including just under half in family & friends care.

MethodologyData from children’s files, studying the children and parents and the foster care system, withattention to the mothers’ attitudes to the placement. Plus use of scales, including one tomeasure children’s behaviour.

AA14Pub. date 2010

Author J Valle & M Lopez

Country Spain

PurposeA descriptive study of the profile and scope of foster placements, 85% of which are family &friends care.

FeaturesParental substance misuse problems featured more highly in family & friends care placementsand featured overall for 40% of mothers and 33% of fathers. Alcohol problems and mentalhealth problems also featured highly.

Many family & friends carers are elderly, living in precarious social and economiccircumstances, and often caring for abused children. Until recently there has been littleattention to their needs from the authorities.

In relation to contact, 60% of children were visited by parents, with a much higher numbervisited at the carer’s home than in stranger foster care. The courts were involved in twice asmany stranger foster placements than relative care, and this included intervention in relationto contact arrangements.

Sample 649 foster children from 6 communities: 292 in family & friends care, 357 in stranger foster care.Plus a study of the 321 closed cases in the sample: 142 family & friends care, 179 other.

MethodologyA form to collect profile information of the children and families, the agency process and whythe case was closed. Plus information from social workers and from files.

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AA15Pub. date 2010

Author Knudsen L, Egelund T & Hestbaek A-D

Country Denmark

PurposeA descriptive study comparing family & friends care with stranger foster care, in the light ofthe recent (2007) formalisation of relative care and a new requirement to consider it a usefuloption whenever children are placed. It is the initial stage of a longitudinal study of outcomes.

FeaturesThe few available Nordic studies support international results about family & friends care – ofcontinuity in family relationships, greater stability for children and fewer placement breakdowns,children developing well, and a less traumatising break from their previous home.

Problems relate to parental mental health, substance misuse, physical health and relationshipdifficulties. Relative carers have had less training, including half having none at all, and carersare 4 times less likely to have had training on conflict mediation (11% v 44%).

In relation to contact, those in family & friends care have more frequent contact with parentsand siblings than those in stranger foster care. But over half are not visited or have contactless than once a month.

Sample 444 foster carers.

MethodologyQuestionnaires, and SDQs to measure children’s well-being.

Outcome data is to come later.

AA16Pub. date on-going

Author M Kiraly & C Humphreys

Country Australia

PurposeTo study family contact in family & friends care, including how well it works, the safety issuesinvolved, problems and solutions, and the support needs of children, carers, parents and others.

FeaturesFamily contact.

BME focus: specific attention being paid to feedback from Aboriginal families.

Preliminary findings show that current support responses are often not perceived as helpfulby families. There is a need for counselling and mediation, family-friendly contact centres, andcontinuity of workers who listen to and respect all family members.

In relation to contact, children have a wide network of people who will continue to beimportant throughout their life. Forcing family relationships are not helpful for children andyoung people. Families need much more support with difficult arrangements than is currently available.

LITERATURE REVIEW

61

Sample A wide range of family & friends carers.

MethodologyStage 1: a survey of 500+ carers, including those receiving a carer allowance and others viacommunity organisations and support groups.

Stage 2: focus groups and interviews with young people, parents, carers, and staff groups.

Interviews so far with 21 children and young people, 20 parents and 7 carers, in their home ora community setting, with some rural interviews by phone.

BB – REVIEWS

BB1Pub. date 1999

Author R Greeff (ed)

Country Various

PurposeReviews different aspects of formal family & friends care, ie where social workers have a keyrole. A mix of contributions from researchers and practitioners, to stimulate thinking and to re-assess traditional ways of thinking about foster care. Its starting point is that family & friendscare is a positive option because it is of real value to children, and that a systemic perspectiveneeds to replace a narrow focus on the nuclear family household.

Sections explore the policy dimension (Britain, Poland), the social work role (Netherlands,Britain, Belgium, Ireland), and issues of race, gender and welfare (USA, Ireland, New Zealand).

BB2Pub. date 2003

Author M Connelly

Country New Zealand

PurposeA literature review of family & friends care.

BB3Pub. date 2004

Author G Cuddeback

Country USA

PurposeA synthesis of research in the USA, to compensate for weaknesses in quantitative researchabout family & friends care. Empirical studies are evaluated on location, sample populationand size, the use of comparison groups, sampling method, research design, the use ofstandardised measures, and the method of data collection. Qualitative studies are notincluded.

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Findings are presented about demographic characteristics, grandparent carers, birth families,child functioning, training services and support, placement stability, psychosocialcharacteristics, and child welfare professionals.

The findings tend to reflect the general thrust of other international studies: carers are olderand poorer, enjoy less activity and have more problems, receive fewer services and less cashhelp than stranger foster carers.

There is inconclusive evidence that children in family & friends care have greater problemsrelated to overall functioning than children in stranger care.

BB4Pub. date 2008

Author P Nixon

Country Various

PurposeExamines contemporary issues and trends in family & friends care by reviewing the UK andinternational literature. It draws on 109 publications based on primary research studies: 30from the UK, 65 from the USA, and 14 from other countries (including Australia, NewZealand, Ireland, Sweden and others in Europe). Also draws on 84 publications aboutsecondary research (23 from the UK and 61 from the USA and other countries).

Contents cover the impact of family & friends care on children, carers and families; howcurrent services are responding to the needs of placements; and a framework for futureservice provision. With a focus on children’s safety, assessment, planning and review,finances, and social work support.

The section on contact includes studies from the UK, Sweden, Ireland and the USA.

BB5Pub. date 2009

Author M Winokur, A Holtan & D Valentine

Country Various

PurposeA review of 62 comparative studies, to explore whether research can indicate which kind offoster placement is best (in terms of safety, permanency and well-being) for children removedfrom home after maltreatment.

Concludes that the current best evidence suggests that children in family & friends care maydo better in terms of behavioural development, mental health and placement stability. Thosein stranger foster care may do better in terms of achieving some permanency outcomes andin accessing the services they need. The review also looked at educational attainment, familyrelationships, and re-abuse.

The review was conducted to address the challenges posed by anecdotal evidence andstudies without comparison groups. The authors identified and synthesised the most stronglydesigned and executed studies. They comment that much is lacking from this research,especially in terms of baseline differences in non-randomised studies, but that we can benefitmore from examining poor evidence than no evidence at all.

LITERATURE REVIEW

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BB6Pub. date 2010


Country Various

PurposeThe project includes a comprehensive literature review, surveying the evidence base on family& friends care where parental substance misuse is the main reason for children needing to liveaway from their parents. The search strategy had an English language restriction. The focuswas on the countries of Western Europe; South Africa; North, Central & South America; andAustralia and New Zealand.

Includes findings and recommendations about contact, assessment, and support at the startof and throughout placements. Children need help with their past, their education, their fearof repeating their parent’s substance misuse and their increased anger as they grow older.Carers need help to cope with the added stress and distress that arises from parenting agrandchild and being the parent of their own child with substance misuse problems.

BB7Pub. date 2010

Author Boetto

Country Australia

PurposeA literature review about the issues relevant to family & friends care in Australia, with a focuson findings about the changes needed to the processes and support functions in family &friends care arrangements. It argues for the development of a practice framework that takesaccount of the differences between family & friends care and traditional foster care, and forprocesses that take account of culturally specific customs.

BB8Pub. date 2010

Author E Fernandez & R Barth (eds)

PurposeA book of 15 chapters on different aspects of foster care and practice in different countries.

Family & friends care is explored, in relation to effectiveness (including placement stability),comparison with stranger foster care, and policy developments.

Includes discussion of family & friends care in Denmark, England, the Netherlands and Spain.

BB9Pub. date 2011 (forthcoming)

Author M Kiraly & C Humphreys

Country Australia

PurposeA literature review of family contact in family & friends care, with a focus on children’s well-being and safety; issues of family connectedness, support and identity; and implications forpolicy and future research. It notes the lack of specific research about Indigenous children informal family & friends care, despite nearly half of children in Victoria State being Indigenous.

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APPENDIX D – INTERNATIONAL REFERENCES

AA1 Berrick JD, Barth RP & Needell B (1994) A comparison of kinship foster homes andfoster family homes: implications for kinship foster care as family preservation. Childrenand Youth Services Review. 16 (1/2), 33-63.

AA2 Le Prohn N (1994) The role of the kinship foster parent: a comparison of the roleconceptions of relative and non-relative foster parents. Children and Youth ServicesReview. 16 (1/2), 65-84.

AA3 Harris M (1996) Comparing Mothers of Children in Kinship Foster Care:Reunification vs. Remaining in Care. In Gleeson JP & Hairston CF (eds) Kinship Care:Improving Practice Through Research (145-166). Washington DC: Child Welfare Leagueof America Inc.

AA4 Pemberton D (1999) Fostering in a Minority Community – Travellers in Ireland. InGreeff R (ed) (1999) Fostering Kinship. An international perspective on kinship foster care.Aldershot: Ashgate Arena.

AA5 O’Brien V (2001) ‘Family fostering’ – Children’s Experiences of Care by Relatives inCleary A, NicGhilla Phadraig M & Quin S (eds) Understanding Children. Vol 1, Oak TreePress, Cork.

AA6 Ehrle J & Geen R (2002) Kin and Non-Kin Foster Care - Findings from a NationalSurvey. Children and Youth Services Review, 24 (1/2),15-35.

AA7 Smith A, Krisman K, Strozier AL & Marley MA (2004). Breaking Through the Bars:Exploring the Experiences of Addicted Incarcerated Parents Whose Children Are Caredfor by Relatives. Families in Society, 85, 187-195.

AA8 Messing J T (2006) From the child's perspective: A qualitative analysis of kinshipcare placements. Children and Youth Services Review, 28, 12,1415-1434.

AA9 Metzger J (2008) Resiliency in Children and Youth in Kinship Care and Family FosterCare. Child Welfare, 87, 6, 115-140.

AA10 Palacios J & Jimenez J (2009) Kinship foster care: protection or risk? Adoptionand Fostering, 33 (3), 64-75.

AA11 EU Kinship Carers Project (2009) Forgotten Families. The needs of kinship carersin Europe. Mentor UK.

AA12 Gleeson J & Seryak CM (2010) 'I made some mistakes ... but I love them dearly'the views of parents of children in informal kinship care. Child and Family Social Work,15, 1, 87-96.

AA13 Strijker J (2010) Foster Care in the Netherlands: Correlates of PlacementBreakdown and Successful Placement. In E Fernandez and R Barth (eds) How DoesFoster Care Work? International Evidence on Outcomes. London: Jessica KingsleyPublishers.

AA14 Valle J & Lopez M (2010) Profile and Scope of Foster Care in Spain. In EFernandez and R Barth (eds) How Does Foster Care Work? International Evidence onOutcomes. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

LITERATURE REVIEW

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AA15 Knudsen L, Egelund T & Hestbaek A-D (2010) Foster Care in Denmark:Comparing Kinship and Non-Kinship Forms of Care. In E Fernandez and R Barth (eds)How Does Foster Care Work? International Evidence on Outcomes. London: JessicaKingsley Publishers.

AA16 Kiraly M & Humphreys C (2011, forthcoming)

BB1 Greeff R (ed) (1999) Fostering Kinship. An international perspective on kinship fostercare. Aldershot: Ashgate Arena.

BB2 Connolly M (2003) Kinship Care: A Selected Literature Review. New Zealand:submitted to the Department of Child,Youth and Family.

BB3 Cuddeback GS (2004) Kinship family foster care: a methodological and substantivesynthesis of research. Children and Youth Services Review, 26, 7, 623-639.

BB4 Nixon P (2008) Relatively speaking: developments in research and practice inkinship care. Dartington: Research in Practice.

BB5 Winokur M, Holtan A & Valentine D (2009) Kinship care for the safety, permanency,and well-being of children removed from the home for maltreatment. Cochrane Databaseof Systematic Reviews, Issue 1.

BB6 EU Kinship Carers Project (2010) Understanding the needs of kinship carers. Anupdate to the literature review.

BB7 Boetto H (2010) Kinship care: a review of issues. Family Matters, 85, 60-67.

BB8 Fernandez E & Barth R (eds) How Does Foster Care Work? International Evidenceon Outcomes. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

BB9 Kiraly M & Humphreys C (2011, forthcoming) Contact issues for children in kinshipcare: a literature review in ambiguous territory. Australian Social Work.

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